Rating: 
Summary: On The Money
Review: I have been a baseball fan all my life. I have never read a better book on the business of baseball. If you have wondered why the Oakland A's seem to keep uncovering new talent to replace that which they lose to free agency - READ THIS BOOK! Michael Lewis does more than explain this phenomenon he tells a compelling story. The book is well investigated and extremely well written. This book makes so, so much sense. THIS IS A MUST READ FOR ANY SPORTS FAN.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding
Review: This is one of the top baseball books I have other read. Its fun, moves along, and is an interesting look behind the scenes. AS a long time reader of Bill James, it was interesting to see the James work coming back to life in mainstream circles. It is also a story of people who did not merely accept their fate, but reinvted it into one that they could win...a lesson many of us could learn. Certainly, all baseball fans should read this book.
Rating:
Summary: Billy Beane, Baseball Genius
Review: A fabulous read for all baseball fans. Well written by a guy who was able to get inside the brain trust of the Oakland A's. I don't know what all the fuss was about when excerpts of this book were initially released. A GM's job is to do right by his team and owners. If that means exploiting another team's ignorance of its farm system, so be it. Billy Beane does that and then some. This book does a great job of showing Beane's team buidling process.
Rating:
Summary: A very interesting inside look at the A's
Review: If you have ever read Bill James or Rob Neyer, this book is definately for you, for everyone else, this book will make you take a second look at the game.
As Michale Lewis takes a look at the Oakland A's organization, we are privy to many different inside the game conversations. The reader quickly learns how it is that the A's have been able to succeed while others say they can't, by looking at the game differently. This different look has grown in recent years and will continue to grow as the Toronto Blue Jays, and the Boston Red Sox now have GM's with a strong SABR based analysis of prospects.
I highly reccomend this book for all baseball lovers.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant read...
Review: As an avid baseball fan, avid Seattle Mariner's fan, and avid Oakland Athletic's hater, I am in complete awe of this book. While I don't agree with every one of Billy Beane's philosophy's, so much of it makes sense. When you break it down, it's hard to dispute that it works for him. If every team used his thoughts would it work? Probably not, but that's the beauty of Billy and his team of computer nerds, they made a new way of thinking in baseball work.Even if you're not a baseball fan, this book is a fabulous read. While he does go into great detail about many aspects of the game a casual observer wouldn't understand, he does it with such grace and elegance that it doesn't get the least bit heavy handed. Micheal Lewis is a master at turning in something that may seem dry to some, and making it a personal, touching story, with fabulous characters and incredible plot development. I highly recommend this book to anyone. It will be talked about for the next few decades for sure, if not beyond.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding
Review: This is the most enlightening baseball book since Bill James' Baseball Abstract.
Rating:
Summary: Could not put it down
Review: I'm a "baseball dad" with both a 15-year-old son who plays HS baseball and a 7-year-old grandson who plays little league. I keep the scorebook and the stats for all my son's games and have been doing so for the last 5 years. One of the other baseball dad's recommended this book to me and said I would like it. So based on his recommendation I bought the book yesterday. This book is terrific. It's an easy read. But more importantly, it gives you an inside look at the MLB draft through the eye's of the Oakland A's. It's a tale of two schools of thought - the old way of selecting players based on scouting reports vs the new way of selecting players based on stats - but not just any stats. And the book provides some interesting background on the stats of yesteryear and today. For example, everyone thinks the batting average is one of the greatest indicators of success - but this book points out it is really OBP and SLG, not AVG that is the best indicator of runs. If you like baseball, you are really going to savor and enjoy the inside look at the draft, scouts, and a lively discussion of old school vs new school with regard on how best to select players on a low budget. Run, don't walk, to buy this book. 2 thumbs up!
Rating:
Summary: Changes the way you watch baseball.
Review: I have found myself dissecting a baseball game in a much different way since reading 'Moneyball'. This book is truely insightfull and interesting. Not just a analysis of Billy Bean, the Oakland A's genious GM, but also a story of the personal triumphs of several "nobody" baseball players. This book is for you if you are a baseball junkie, a statistical nerd, or if you always root for the underdog.
Rating:
Summary: A fascinating new look at baseball strategy
Review: Any real baseball fan will love this book. I inhaled. Built around the the translation of statistics to identify talent that is not fully valued by other teams and game strategy, it tells the story of the Oakland 1992 under general manager Billy Beane and lhow he put it together. A great read.
Rating:
Summary: fantastic
Review: Michael Lewis presents Billy Beane's theories on how to run a baseball team in this very entertaining book. By the end of the book, I was so convinced of the rightness of Beane's thinking that I cringed at the thought of my beloved Texas Rangers being run by someone other than him. Beane's thriving on and exposure of the inefficiencies of the ballplayer market could revolutionize the game. Pretty soon, more teams will ditch the current model based on the Yankees' mantra of spend, spend, spend in favor of Beane's objectivism. Then, hopefully teams could afford to slash ticket prices and people would actually start going to games. Sounds better than anything our pal Bud Selig could ever come up with, but that's another story.
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